I recently had DS5 tested for LD because of his below average performance in school, mostly in reading and writing, with occasional math mixed in as well.
No LD found, and confirmed gifted (though not PG, so I apologize if I should not be posting here). He dislikes school (too much work per him), and most of our home learning before school focused on subject and desire-led learning and discussions.

I did not work aggressively with him learning to read before starting Kindergarten, as he was at daycare and I felt they were doing plenty (before I knew of the requirements for K).

When I work with him with new concepts, he picks up quickly but is resistant to practice what he is not strong in so fluency is low. Reading has improved dramatically, as well as writing. Math is good concept-wise, but he makes careless errors, leading to low test scores (school tests frequently even in K).

I keep hearing of gifted children reading at 2-3 years old, and I feel that since DS is gifted he should not be behind.

Is it possible this is just due to a late start in early reading skills, teaching methods at school (don't get me going on the reading techniques they teach!), maturity, or something else? Are my expectations too high because he is gifted and I just need to have patience for him to make the leap to independent reading and writing? I've recently focused more at home on a phonics-based instruction instead of the "look at the picture and guess the word from context clues" method. And he can do that, just haltingly. Math I'm not concerned about though he is making mistakes on tests. While working with him he gets answers correct but I just need to remind him to check his work. IMO, 5 is too young to worry about test scores if you understand what that concept is.

Anyone else with similar experiences? I'm even considering change in schooling d/t the worksheet drill method used at our PS. TIA!

I would not worry to much, he is just 5. When is his birthday? I have seen this from time to time when a child is one of the younger students in the class. Sometimes they just need to gain a little maturity and will make the leap.

It isn't uncommon for even PG kids to start school not reading. When they do start they absolutely zoom through grade levels.

I hate worksheet drills for all children, so no argument from me on that!

A child of a family member had no reading or even pre-reading skills (she didn't have a clue what sound each letter made) at all when she started school, and I hear now she is reading 3 years ahead of her grade level. Some kids read early and some don't. And I agree that you don't have to read early to be gifted.

I'm sorry I do not know exactly when or why it clicked for her.

I would not be too concerned from what you have written.

Just a thought, have you had his eyes checked? My DD took off with reading when she got her glasses. It might be an avenue worth exploring if you haven't yet.

FWIW, my DS 4.5 is also likely gifted but his interest in anything academic is often SO incredibly minimal. He just has better things to do with his time. His sister was reading thick novels by this age, but they just have different interests and personality.

The issue may simply be that what your perception of what was happening for him at daycare was very different from reality. Marketing materials often say something very different from what is practiced there.

Thanks for the replies and reassurances. I had an optometrist check his vision prior to school but nothing else checked as far as vision. He is 5 and 7 months now. His prior daycare was reviewing letters and their sounds and trying early Bob books. At the time I was unaware what K is like and thought they were pushing him too soon. I was remembering my youth and playing all day in K. But daycare teaching was cursory as he actually needed remediation with half his letters. Now he can sound out many words but can only say a few fluently. I'm stuck between wanting to push him to catch up with his class and "peers" (most older than him), and not pushing too hard. It's such a hard balance.

Overall, I'd say don't worry - nothing you've described sounds out of the ordinary for a gifted student (even for a PG student - some children read early, other children are busy observing or building or whatever and don't start reading until they're ready to).

What I do wonder about is what prompted the testing for possible LD - was it your decision based on what looked like underachievement in school, or did the school suggest testing? Is your ds generally happy or ok with school, or is he having meltdowns over school work? Has he said that schoolwork is hard?

The reason I ask those questions is - I have 2e kids with LDs. Nothing you've said *on it's own without other reasons for concern* really indicates anything is up - other than the possibility that you've landed in a school that is too all-about-achievement and test scores, which (jmo) isn't usually a good match for most early elementary students. However, if you've seen any other signs such as behavior issues, complaints of work being too difficult (when you'd expect it would be easy work based on your ds' ability), or if a teacher has expressed concerns, then I'd take another look at the test results. Teasing out LDs at this age is tough - most students aren't diagnosed until they are at least in 2nd-3rd grade, and with gifted children who can compensate well sometimes it's much later before anyone recognizes an LD.

polarbear

Your son's school sounds pretty intense. Public or private? Perhaps a competitive district? What are the expectations he is not meeting? What is he able and unable to do? In K, most kids can't really read or write much yet, or do math beyond facts 1 to 10 and counting to 100.

Just wanted to add - ita with all of what um said. I was also wondering what the expectations were going *into* kindergarten. Our neighborhood schools really don't have expectations, even our gifted magnet had kindergarten students who weren't reading all that much by the end of K.

polarbear

About the tests. Our kids have tests at that level too but they are not about pass/fail but readiness. Are you sure they aren't just testing for who needs to move to a higher maths group? And/or to get info about where each student is and what they are struggling with. Not all tests are aimed to be able to pass in the way we as adults think of tests.

I'll just throw into the mix, not to forget he's a boy. Both my gifted boys (as well as many others I know) had no interest in reading in K primarily b/c they were not interested in Biscuit, or Spot, but rather some sort of DK book or encyclopedia about space, history, science etc. A fun resource for helping them is Mimio/Headsprout. It does a really good job of bridging that K-2 gap and teaching them the reading and comprehension with "higher level" interest including space, history etc..

What I find frustrating about all of this is that many bright children (often boys) get a mental block about reading and school in general by the time they are in 1st grade as they see that most of their classmates are gaining reading fluency rapidly while they are still struggling.

So while I wish I could say relax and don't worry about it, "remediation" over summer might help boost his confidence going into 1st grade.

Some gifted kids learn to read at 2/3 but not all of them. Gifted children can be quite different. I know a few gifted kids that didn't really read till 2nd grade and then picked it up extremely quickly and were way above average by 3rd grade. Reading is very developmental and some kids are just not there yet.

I would say don't worry so much except that school expectations seems to be a real problem. If you look over the K curriculum you will find that the material is really very simple, and takes a huge amount of repetition. Since you have the testing and it shows he doesn't have any obvious learning difficulties I would back off a bit till he is a tab bit older if you can.

My second daughter did not read until first grade. We didn't worry a ton, as her older sister also "read late" and didn't read until first grade. It turns out that second daughter is PG, and it also turned out that she is 2E (non-verbal learning disability). But once she started reading in first grade, she took off like a rocket -- she read the full Lord of the Rings trilogy in second grade. And had perfect SAT scores eventually on the SAT Critical Reading, Writing, and Subject Test in Literature. So at least for her, being slow to read was not a problem in the long run.

My advice is to keep reading to him a lot -- you want him to love books and language so he keeps reading once he gets the hang of it. In fact, I read aloud to second daughter until she was about 13, we just liked it as an activity. You may want to see about testing if he is still struggling by the end of first grade, though.

Our ODS really loved books (looking at and being read to) until partway through his kindergarten year. He really wasn't too fond of being taught to read, and I found it a bit nerve wracking that I couldn't get it to "take". (He knew all his letters and could spell some words, go figure.) Seemingly overnight, reading started for him, and he took off like a rocket. He's seven and in second grade now, and rapidly burning through our large library's collection.

I would echo, though, the suggestion to have his eyes checked with an eye doctor used to checking children. DS is very farsighted and I think that also slowed his start with reading, as it was really a strain.

Wow! Thanks for all the replies! I didn't know this board got so much traffic. I'll try to answer some of the comments.

We tested for LD because for three report cards he consistently was not satisfactory. At first the teacher was saying things like he'll likely be on target for next report card, then we got comments that he *might* be caught up by the end of K, as well as possibly needing retention. Well, the minute I heard retention I went into find-a-reason-for-this mode. Some of her comments included he was not answering questions consistently (for math) or not being "confident" while reading. I personally have noticed lack of attention, and there is dyslexia in the family, so we got him tested. I felt he was bright, but why wasn't he doing well? And there was NO way I would consider retention without it, as I know a large majority of children retained are found to have LD in the future.

In general, DS tells me he hates school. Teacher has never seen any indication he feels this way, but that's what he tells me (I think because of all the work). He doesn't complain that it's hard, just I feel the quantity is high for him.

We are in a elem-middle-high school high achieving area. Where we live there are a few hotspots of great schools among poor scoring ones. I didn't realize how test happy they were until we moved in and started the school process. The local pre-K has children reading easy readers before they start Kindergarten. DS is expected to read a level D reader from the accelerated reader type books to pass K. From what I can see, most of these books are 70% sight words, 20% "guessing words" (like dinosaur was in a book today), and 10% phonics. And not "easy phonics". Cake was a word from the book today as well. There are lots of pictures and the children are encouraged to look at the pictures, the first letter, and try to guess the word, from my best understanding. However, I digress.

Behavior with him is ok, but he does get some warnings, some for talking, occ for goofing around in class. The person who tested is a PhD psychologist who supposedly specializes in gifted and school testing. Though we may consider the local university in the future.

I think so too but others have said it is also par for K. So I'm uncertain. As mentioned, they have to read level D readers to pass K, and are expected to write fairly expressively (still I'm uncertain about what is required). For an example, I would say 70% of the children are writing independent sentences with very legible letters. A lot have progressed to good spelling as well. Counting to 100, plus they write to 100, skip counting, as well as counting by 5's, 10's. I don't think those math skills are required, just counting to 20?

I'm uncertain about the testing. As far as I know speaking with the other moms, all the children take the same quizzes (workbook) and the teacher has test scores she shows me when doing progress reports to show if he is satisfactory or not. I don't know % for passing, however.

Wow...retention. I was not aware that there were Ks now threatening this over not being able to read. When you sat level D, do you mean level D Fountas and Pinnell, like here? http://www.readinga-z.com/readinga-z-levels/level-correlation-chart/ I'm not intimately familiar with levels (my kids' schools have not concentrated on this, at least for them) but that seems like a high bar to pass K!!

My DS (K) is expected to count to 100, IIRC, and to skip count, and facts to 10, but I don't believe they would retain unless he could not count to 10 or recognize letters or behavior was very immature indeed. I don't KNOW this. Just a feeling. As for writing, they do indeed work on it but there are a lot of kids who can't.

That level D looks maybe similar to a little harder that the accelerated reader books. The one I saw for him had lots of words like looked, chair, and said. I can't figure out these levels at all, TBO, because I'm still of the mind they should be learning how to read with phonics.

I'm not certain if she mentioned retention because it was a likely possibility or a distant one and she didn't want us to be surprised at the end of the year.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll put it on my wish list.

Thank you for this suggestion. Indeed, I feel we will be required to work on reading, writing, and probably even spelling over the majority of the summer. I think if I keep instruction to less than 1 hour total per day it won't be too burdensome but still effective. There is also a ton of redshirting here and DS is almost the youngest in the class. In a way I wonder if all this trouble will be beneficial as he will naturally be already 1-2 years younger than his classmates as he advances, which might help with future boredom. The problem is keeping him from hating school in the meantime.

Thanks in general for the words of encouragement and experiences. I am hopeful he will suddenly make a leap forward and everything will quick. I feel I am pressuring him as I feel pressured d/t the comment about retention if he cannot read at the level required. I am also trying to not work too long in one session, 5-10 min as he tires and gets frustrated. For about a month we were doing Reading Eggs as our supplement. That seemed ok, but I needed to start with consonant teams (th, sh, ch, etc) and have been doing that with all about reading. I may go back and forth between the two as reading eggs is more fun. I'll also look into headsprout as an option.

It's so hard as I always loved school, and when I was in K I was older, and we didn't need to read this young, so I feel out of place.

The NZ standard after one year of school (is when you turn 6) is level 12 of the new Zealand readers which are equivalent to level 12 of the PM readers, so G or H. Some kids don't make it though and they aren't held back as a general rule.

Maybe our teachers assess differently though because it does seem quite a discrepency.

Is it possible there is a behavioral concern? I just ask because retention is quite rare these days in my experience.

No, it's still pretty common.

As my (summer birthday) son told me yesterday...."I'm the oldest one in my class except for the others who got held back."

I have some inside knowledge that the schools in my area will only do this once, though.

Displaced, my children's school taught phonics, but they also emphasized learning (memorizing) sight words so that children would not be tripped up by high-frequency but phonics-rules-breaker words when reading. You might want to see where your ds is at on the Dolch lists of site words as a reference point.


Since it was mentioned, I'd ask her specifically what she *did* mean. If it is a possibility, you need to know the details of why, what are the criteria, etc. I would also, after talking to her about this, seriously request a team meeting to discuss the reading issues. Please note - I don't think that anything you've mentioned about your ds' reading level is cause for concern at this point in kindergarten *at all*, but it sounds like your ds' school is really pushing the students in reading. So even though it's most likely just developmental for your ds, since the *school* is insisting there's an issue, call a team meeting. If they insist, at the meeting, that your ds is underachieving or struggling in reading, formally request an evaluation for an LD in reading. If he's struggling so much that the school feels he needs to repeat K, they need to also evaluate and look at whether or not he needs individualized instruction.

polarbear

REDSHIRTING is common (in some areas). RETENTION is not common.

I think this is excellent advice.

Actually, I must take my statement back. Although I doubt the figures are very reliable, it looks like redshirting K and repeating a grade happens at about the same frequency or that retention is more common. I made the error of basing my statement on my own sample. (I know many redshirted kids and only one who was retained--my sample is not all UMC, either. Perhaps it is unpopular in my district or state.)

My own sample is the same as yours. I've known many redshirted kids. But i know my district has a policy against retention as only a last resort for K-8. The district policy to to keep the kids with their peers and test them for LD's, give them extra help. I know because I brought up the issue for my daughter in 2nd grade. She was young for her grade, and has LD's. The only way I could have held her back was move her to a private school. I have never heard of any student who was retained by the school, a few who's parents pulled them out after a month of K and waited till the next year. But I think this depends on the state and the school.

I suspect the teacher is squawking about his reading partially because she has benchmarks she is supposed to make. They look bad if the students don't enter 1st grade reading. We are scrutinizing our teachers more than ever, and teachers are being graded on the success rate of their students.

I know of a school with 2-grade rooms that often retains kids (like, 2% of kids?) for an extra year in K-1, either at the end of K or the end of 1. If retained at the end of K they have the chance to catch up again and move on to 2nd with their original cohort.

This is usually done at the request of parents and teachers together after a truly useless year, when some other issue kept the kid from fully participating and learning. That is, there is reason to expect that this is not an ongoing issue that would affect every year. It's also not done for isolated academic reasons like the OP describes. Sometimes it also comes with a teacher change (the kids normally stay in the same room both years). Sad that useless years happen often enough that I would know about it, but good that they have a matter-of-fact way to deal when it does happen.

I had concerns with behavior and thought he might have had ADD, but it is unlikely per psychologist, who attributes the behaviors we see to age. Also, we expressed this to the teacher, who felt he was normal for his age.

Thank you for the advice. Any thoughts on who would likely be on his "team"? I've only had conferences with the teacher. The educational psychologist was private.

The ed. psych. said his testing did not qualify him for a LD per current criteria, but she also stated testing may need to be repeated if he is still struggling in a year. He is receiving individual attention in class since he started. He has small group with teacher, a "special" computer program a few times per week, and the person helping another child with writing also helps DS with his writing.

The conference where she mentioned retention basically was her saying there was a *chance* he would pass K, then there was discussion of his possibly needing retention, her stating she brings that up in a conference no matter the risk so that parents "are not surprised" if it occurs. She also mentioned that if he catches up by the end of the year, she might still recommend voluntary retention because 1st grade is so writing intensive.

Well, the most recent conference with teacher has revealed that DS is "at level" but his grade is still not satisfactory. His reading has improved but he is not "confident" as a reader yet. She says he will pass K but only because she knows how involved we are in his education. She did not know the results of gifted testing during that conference, and no longer recommends retention.

So, Yeah? Or Boo? I don't know how to feel about this, especially since all DS says about school he usually dislikes (except lunch and recess) because of all the work.

I think the thing that makes this so hard is that it's SO unique to the child and also very changeable. A year ago I would have told you I had one who'd been skipped and desperately needed it, and one who was MG/2E and I'd always regret not holding back (she's so young for grade she could easily have gone either way in our system). Last week at her parent teacher interview I was astounded to hear that her teacher's only problem was how to extend her enough, especially in literacy. This is my child who was nearly held back in yr2 for literacy, who was finally diagnosed as dyslexic in yr 5... During yr 6 we were talking about repeatig yr7 through a school change... Start of yr7 and her teacher's only concern is that he's not extending her enough. In literacy. To say I nearly fell of my chair is an understatement.

PG kids are singularities. But so are the 2e kids, especially the ones where it's so hard to tell for sure if there IS an LD at all... I'm not saying your child has an LD I'm saying some kids are late bloomers and its really hard to tell whiteout the kid right in front of you, and sometimes even then.

My MG child hasn't started looking actually gifted until yr7, yr4-6 we could argue that her catching up instead of falling further behind was a sign of how bright she was. But she was absolutely behind in kindy and yes it seems she really is MG and is finding her feet and showing it at last....

Honestly, it doesn't sound like much fun to me, either. He's five, right? If you and the school keep working with him, and looking for opportunities to make learning fun, I would expect a lot of growth within the next few years (which will like occur in short spurts of big leaps forward).

I would not hold back a gifted child because first grade is writing intensive. This is one issue with schools... I have had several teachers tell me that many young boys just aren't physically comfortable writing in K, 1 or 2. It doesn't mean they should stop learning while their writing catches up. This is one of the things that's great about our son's 2nd grade teacher... she gets that he's not going to love it yet, but works through it.

BTW, our PG son consistently says lunch and recess are his favorite subjects... although recently he's been telling us good things about his accelerated grade math class.

Honestly, is that's really how the teacher is expressing this, I'd be wondering if maybe there's a teacher fit problem. He might be retained because he's at level but not "confident" yet?? That's not a reason to retain a kid. If he needs to be more confident, or if he's not quite at level, he should be getting extra help from reading specialists, aides, or special ed teacher. Retention shouldn't even be part of the discussion until the school has provided extra help in this scenario.

For heaven's sake, I wish I had one of my daughter's second grade spelling bee lists for you. I'm pretty sure "cake" was on there last week. Also "den." The very hardest word on the entire list so far has been "tasteless." And our district is high COL and high achieving; our school's test scores are among the highest in the area.

Here is a resource site for a typical 1st grade reading curriculum:

http://www.primarygradesclasspage.com/first%20grade%20harcourt.htm

Note that even at the end of the school year, they are still reading beginning chapter books like Frog and Toad All Year and Poppleton. Do you know who his 1st grade teacher is going to be? Can you go knock on his/her door?

I highly recommend the Toe by Toe reading manual by Keda Cowling. It is available on Amazon for $40.

The gifted/dyslexia experts Drs. Brock and Fernette Eide recommended it for my son and his improvement has been amazing.

My son's teacher, who has over forty years of teaching experience, has never seen kid improve so much in such a short amount of time. She is recommending it to everyone.

It only takes working with him at home twenty minutes a day. If you got it now, he would have time to make a lot of progress before first grade.

Five months ago my son was stumbling through Bob books guessing based on the first letter and the picture on the page.

Now he can actually read and is getting better everyday. Today his teacher mentioned that now he always has his nose in a book.

Thank you for your experience. It was very hopeful to me. Before testing I thought for sure there would be dyslexia or dysgraphia or *something*. The fact they didn't find something made me feel relief, but I think I should always keep in mind that children of this age change so quickly and to not negate it as a possibility. It's also good to hear of stories of taking off in school a little older, as I have the false assumption that G = accelerated in all subjects.

Yes, 5 y/o. I have to stop sometimes and think how different his childhood is from mine. I played at home everyday, wanted to start school, and then K was just playing too. He has been in a "school" setting/daycare since infancy, and now K is not how it was.

Unfortunately writing/written expression is part of his grades. Not that I really care what his grades are now as I don't think they mean much anyway. My biggest concern is needing to write so much and that adding on to his dislike of school in general. I'm hopeful that as we work to improve his writing and it becomes easier, it will make his feelings about school change. Similar to how there were subjects I disliked but learned them after working hard and don't dislike as much.

The other thing is if school is pushing him so much, it is probably at least somewhat challenging. I'm thinking him being the youngest in a competitive school may help with regards to his intellect as he may not get bored so quickly.

It's interesting you say this as when I asked the ed. psych what I could do to help him like school, she replied to get him another teacher. To me she seems sweet and nice, patient and competent. But to DH she seems to lack emotion. Maybe to DS she's boring. Per the teacher the school doesn't usually provide extra help officially until children are 2 grade levels behind. As I work with him and he's getting extra help at school I feel ok. Honestly I think my working with him is better than what they're doing (who doesn't usually feel that way?). I think he just needs a lot of reading and phonics practice. Teacher was giving him 1-2 books a week to bring home to read. I have him read 2 easy phonics daily. I think he just needs practice and exposure. Before last week, he didn't know th, sh, or ch. Now he's starting to read words with those blends in them.

I don't know (maybe I don't even want to know!) the first grade curriculum here. I would say at least to books 10-12 they are expected to read by the end of Kindergarten here.

I do think it's a good idea to find out ahead of time the levels of books starting and progressing through first grade. There may be overlap in the beginning of the school year with Kindergarten. And I hate playing "catch up", as I feel we've been doing. I'd rather use afterschool to get ahead some or do enrichment in fun activities instead of using it to get to current standards. I don't know about teachers ahead of time. The school has >1,000 students, so I imagine at least 7-8 1st grade teachers. I think they follow similar curriculums though with most things so I could probably find out some general ideas for the year ahead.

I have to agree. I am so surprised by what you describe. I guess it could be regional differences. I have my DS's K report card here because he received it last week and it talks about learning some high-frequency words by year's end, IDing all letters, and, well, it does say read beginner books. For writing, print "many" letters. "Write letters for sounds." For math, add and subtract to 5, understand 11-19, understand and name shapes, count to 100 by ones and 10s, write numbers to 20.

My DD's whole class was reading Frog and Toad mid year in 1st, in a very high-scoring school. (I mean, that is why we left, in part. But you see my point.)

Thank you for this recommendation. I think we'll try it!

To me, Frog and Toad books are pretty advanced! So, you left because they were too competitive or aggressive?

Thanks for the report card benchmarks. Our report cards just say the grade next to the subject IIRC. The progress sheets the teacher fills during conferences are much more detailed. Though I know we're doing at least the core curriculum.

FWIW our curriculum is much more in line with what ultramarina posted. Our provincial kindergarten program was re-written recently to be more play based. I don't think they ever hold kids back (not that there aren't problems with that, some kids might benefit but that's a whole other topic).

My 2e DS was behind in JK/SK (we have two years of kindergarten here). Grade 1 he was slightly behind in reading and really behind in writing. We tested and his scores were all over the place (they suspect a processing speed LD but will test again when he's older to confirm). We got an IEP for the last half of grade 1 that allowed scribing and advocated for a better teacher match for this year. This year he's made huge improvements and his reading and writing are at grade level and they hardly ever use the accommodations in the IEP (they are still there in case the increased writing as he gets older becomes an issue again).

More importantly school is less of a battle and I attribute that to a better teacher match. The worst part of last year was that DS started thinking he was "stupid" because he was struggling with writing while other kids weren't. He was extremely frustrated and it came out in his behavior. The teacher's attitude towards him probably didn't help things. After testing we had a big talk about how some things were really easy for him (math & science) and that some things were going to be more of a challenge but that didn't mean he wasn't smart. It has also helped him understand his classmates that struggle in things that he is good at. His new teacher believes in him and DS knows it and does much better at showing his abilities at school while working through his challenges.

In our world gifted doesn't mean accelerated or high achieving in everything. In some areas he blows our minds (and the teachers) and then in others he struggles. Asynchronous is his middle name.

Displaced, I don't think I know a single child who found writing easy in K. It's something that takes multiple different systems. I could write a novel, but even super high IQ kids who are great readers often struggle with writing. My kids writing looked grade level in K, and certainly wasn't easy for them, even though they were reading Harry Potter (see what I did there?).

I found some writing samples that are like how my PG kids and their friends wrote in K
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e1kWI_XFwds/TpxR5zBBeDI/AAAAAAAAHbw/5iP6DjKBvGY/s1600/IMG_2315.JPG

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iw425Jj-f2o/T5tE6XVSxcI/AAAAAAAAJrU/OlPsux44j-k/s1600/w1.jpg

[Edited because I responded to the wrong post.]

My daughter is similar but different. Her issues are handwriting, drawing, and anxiety that turn her into a big bully magnet. Handwriting and drawing seem to be everything in K.

Because she "presents" smart, the fact that she has trouble with a lot of fine motor and spacial skills (even things like putting a box in a small cubbyhole), are seen as behavior issues(not following directions, not doing work). She likes learning but does not feel like she is good in school and wants to be homeschooled.

To handle her asynchronousity (is that a word?) We have researched and loaded an iPad with learning apps that let her progress at her own pace and satisfy her own interests without her having to write anything down.

She learns a ton from that iPad and she never feels she is "working." Also, because she makes the choices, I don't have to be involved. This is good because I do feel anxiety. I don't want her to lose her strengths because they have to sink to the level of her weaknesses. Since she makes the choices about what she learns, I don't have to worry about her feeling pushed.

I've found providing materials at home that support her interests have just been everything for her--and as long as you don't force, I think it really works. We don't touch writing (my child's weakness), just offer her more access to the things she's interested in.

We're not ignoring the weaknesses (doing PT), but she doesn't feel defined by that.

No, we left because that was too easy for my DD. But you see, there was no differentiation. The whole class was reading that mid-year. I think it would be perfectly normal for some kids to not be able to read that, many to be on track with that, but a decent-sized handful to be beyond. Perhaps I wa smisinterpreting--I am not too familiar with the nuances of beginner books. Isn't F and T a beginner book like the type your child is expected to read by the end of K or no?

I agree with Tallulah that many kids' writing looks like that in K and it is quite typical even for advanced kids. Does your son's writing fall in that ballpark? Much worse?

I happen to have a son in K whose writing is good, and it is very obvious from the teachers' responses that this is unusual. I don't even find it that great--my DD's penmanship and ability to compose were much better at this age. I think it's because he's a boy that people flip out a little.

I think you'll both like it. It is a no frills approach - no games, colorful characters, etc. but the incremental nature seems to work because kids are being stretched just enough for progress but not so much as to cause frustration and anxiety.

Good luck!

Thank you for sharing your experiences. I'm wondering how much everything is just up to chance with teacher placement. Some teachers are great, some not so much, some do well with some children and others click with different types. It wasn't until I started reading about giftedness that asynchronous (and other terms) became part of my vocabulary and now DS is starting to fit into an explanation.

DS's handwriting looks more similar to the first linked example. Now, as he is 5.7, after working the whole school year at it. It's hard for me to understand "normal" or "average" because the display board with the class examples look really pretty and neat.

One problem is that DS doesn't care at all what his handwriting looks like. I don't care, either, as long as it portrays information necessary. And he is quite impatient, so he just writes quickly instead of carefully. Coloring is the same. He still just scribbles because to color nicely takes WAAAY too long to him. He just wants to finish.

Maybe I should start him on a typing computer game this summer as I'm sure that will eventually be part of his necessary tools.

Oh, ok. That book is long compared to what is expected (even if only half), and some of the words are harder too. But I think by mid-first grade it may be possible they are requiring something like that.

You may wish to look into Dance Mat Typing. It's fun... many people like it.

Thanks for the rec!

Just to update, I think the problem has been the school's in some part the whole time. I swear it's the program they're using to teach reading. They only teach basic CVC phonics as far as I can figure out. Well, the book DS brought home to read had a list of about 20 words that broke the short vowel CVC rules. My only thought is they're expecting the children to just memorize all these as sight words and then either teach the phonics rules later or never! They included long vowel-silent e words, double vowel words (oo, ai, ou, oo, etc combos), consonant blends (ch, th, etc which I had to teach at home), as well as what I would consider true sight words (where, said, etc).

DS even said to me he doesn't know when to use the long or short sounds of a vowel when I talked with him. I'm beyond frustrated about this program. I don't think he should necessarily know these things in K. I think the challenge has been pretty good for him to learn reading, but at this point it's ridiculous to have a child memorize all these words when you can just teach them the rules and they can sound them out! Sigh. With only four weeks left in school I'll be focusing on long vowels, vowel teams, silent e, and sight words. PITA!